Chef's Blade

In the six-county Chicago area, Cook has the lowest adult obesity rate as well as the most farmers markets and the most full-service groceries per person. DuPage County, which one study recently judged the healthiest in the state, boasts the most fast-food restaurants and full-service restaurants per person. These curiosities emerge in a recent data report from the U.S. Department of ...

Caviar is rather like Rice Krispies. You can get a lot of snap, crackle and pop as you bite down on those tiny fish eggs; the texture is all part of the fun. So you might wonder why Petrossian, the posh Manhattan company selling all things caviar, is taking a chance with a new product called Caviarcubes. Pressed caviars are shaped ...

Not that long ago, the 200 mph moving billboards of NASCAR summed up the bulk of the beer choices around east central Alabama. Today's selection, however, has beer lovers and their taste buds going around in circles. From walls of taps that pour from amber to opaque, to shelves and catalogs filled with various suds, today's choices are the fruits of ...

Dan Kotara's 35 years grinding meat into hamburger ended last year after a single positive test for a potentially deadly strain of E. coli. Unable to market thousands of pounds of meat, he rented a trash bin and doused the meat in black ink to render it unusable. His loss: an estimated $25,000. After that August test, Kotara decided he could ...

John Pilkington's boss wouldn't take no for an answer. During more than two years as a food runner at an upscale steakhouse in Scottsdale, Arizona, Pilkington says his male supervisor groped, fondled and otherwise sexually harassed him more than a dozen times. "It was very embarrassing," Pilkington said. "I felt like I had to do something because the situation was just ...